> Am 12.06.2026 um 13:16 schrieb Daniel Stenberg via curl-users 
> <[email protected]>:
> 
> On Fri, 12 Jun 2026, Ian Norton via curl-users wrote:
> 
>> curl -O URL —-hash sha256:HASH_VALUE​
>> 
>> Does this sound like a good idea?
> 
> It is an idea that is often brought up but has never been materialized. Is it 
> good? I think it depends on how it is done so that in the end people would 
> use it.
> 
> One additional idea is adding the hash into the URL itself somehow so that 
> copy and pasting a single URL is enough and you can't forget the hash:
> 
>  curl -O URL https://host.com/HASHMARKER-HASH/the/path/file.tar.gz
> 
> It also makes the URL not work at all if the download tool doesn't support 
> the hash, which I think is a bonus.

One could use the url fragment to make curl do additional things, as in 
https://host.com/the/path/file.tar.gz#sha256:HASH_VALUE. This is invisible to 
the server, which might be an advantage.

> Doing the hash embedded in the URL is of course a side-track, can be worked 
> on independently and is for sure hard to do with buy-in from others as well.
> 
> Others have suggested a similar thing before but instead of just doing a hash 
> it would verify the *signature* provided.
> 
> Challenges involved include:
> 
> What if you download to stdout and yet want it verified? Like in the classic: 
> "curl https://installer.example.com | sh" case. It seems like that case is 
> still a decent amount of current use cases this could help strengthen.

This would indeed require buffering to a tmp file. Which has problems with the 
streaming example you mentioned.

- Stefan
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